Substitution - Chapter 8
#8 of Substitution (TF Themes)
Substitution - Chapter 8
*
And hence this TF-themed extravaganza continues, as commissioned by Nex_Canis and written by yours truly! Thank you once again for the feedback, it has certainly been a driving force in keeping this story going alright. Cheers!
*
Brantley didn't really understand much of the phone call, filled with odd platitudes and technical terms that mattered nothing to him. What he gathered from it was that his father had been taken out of wherever he was before and wasn't supposed to be taken out of it quite yet. No matter how the wolverine Mr. Naylor had insisted that everything was under control and that everything was being taken care of without trouble, Brantley was already getting a cab before the call had even ended. He hadn't driven his car since his father's accident - something that Miss Lake was almost gleeful to point out - but he couldn't bring himself to do it. Somehow it felt wrong.
Like he was tempting fate.
Half an hour later he was stepping out of a taxi in front of the space age offices of the Nogura Biotechnological Institute, and his heart was beating a chipper 190. He breezed through the sliding doors into the lobby where the hysterically cheerful desk clerk tried to intercept him.
"Here to see Roman Kyle."
"MISTER KYLE!"
It was the wolverine, looking harrowed and eager to please.
"We did not expect you to be here so soon, mister - "
"I want to speak to a doctor," Brantley told him in his most cross lupine way, "I don't even care which one, as long as it's one of the bosses who knows his shit."
"I'll have to check - "
"How about you check pretty quickly?" the wolf growled.
They were standing in the middle of the glossy entrance hall of the Institute. Brantley knew that the set for making a scene was perfectly ready for it. He knew that the wolverine knew as much.
"Perhaps we should go to the hospitality suite, and I can then make my inquiries and have someone come to talk to you from the medical department?" Mister Naylor was quick to propose.
"Or how about you just get me to the hospital suite where they're keeping him, huh?" the wolf hissed.
"Mister Kyle, we should really - "
"I've been listening to your bullshit for four months now, I better get some straight answers pretty soon or you're not going to like it!" Brantley growled.
The wolverine's excessively polite smile didn't waver, but he did seem concerned.
"Yes, yes, I understand your concern, but I must make inquiries first,Mister Kyle," Naylor said quickly. "Let's go to the hospitality suite and we should - I'll be right be back with you, as soon as I can."
"It better be quick," Brantley huffed warily. "You hear me?"
"Yes, Mister Kyle of course," the wolverine said. "I will get you an update as soon as possible. It will be fine."
*
He was back in the overtly sterile room, with a cardboard cup in his paws and the coffee in it going stale while he counted the minutes and tried to think of something particularly acerbic to say the moment someone dared to step in through the door. Yet, when the door did slide open and a serene-looking Doctor Ivy Joliot floated in, trailed by the annoying wolverine, the wolf rushed up to his footpaws and froze in place.
"Mister Kyle."
"What's going on?" Brantley asked.
"Let's sit down," the vixen drawled. "I have a few things to speak with you."
"You're going to tell me what's going on?" Brantley snapped.
"I will have answer, yes," the vixen replied. "Shall we sit down?"
"Since you insist," the wolf grumbled.
Doctor Joliot turned towards the wolverine.
"You may leave," she said, "this is a private conversation."
"Yes, Doctor."
Brantley was surprised the corporate wolverine didn't make complaints at that. He was glad to see the man go, too. The platitudes angered him to no end.
"Let's sit down," said Doctor Joliot to her ill-tempered companion.
Brantley planted himself onto the couch. The vixen settled serenely onto one of the armchairs provided in the seating group.
"Talk, then," the wolf huffed. "Please."
"There was a small unfortunate incident," said Doctor Joliot. "A tube that provided nutrition and oxygen into your father's combinant was damaged. The staff was forced to remove him from his unit so that first aid could be provided."
"What kind of first aid?" Brantley demanded. "They didn't tell me anything on the phone. That Naylor didn't!"
"There was bleeding," the vixen continued, "the tube is connected into a large blood vessel. Hence there was potential for a great deal of bleeding and blood loss as a result. However, the blood loss was moderate and not life-threatening."
"Are you saying he almost bled to death?"
"No, because the blood loss, while significant, was not life-threatening."
"And he's okay now?"
The vixen nodded.
"Minor surgery was required but your father is now resting."
"Resting?"
"In a recovery suite in our surgical department," the vixen said.
"I want to see him."
"It is not yet possible."
Brantley's ears dropped flat.
"Why the hell not?"
"Because he's unconscious," said Doctor Joliot, "sedated."
"Why?" the wolf demanded.
"For his own safety," the vixen said. "He still has many IVs and other medical devices attached, and should he be agitated, he might cause himself harm."
"How long then?" Brantley demanded. "When can I go to see him? Talk to him?"
"It is not possible yet," the vixen repeated.
"Well is there a goddamned medical reason why I can't go to sit by his bed and hold his paw?" Brantley growed.
"Yes," said the vixen in her unnerving calm.
Brantley huffed.
"Maybe you should start over," he said.
"Your father is in isolation, for his own safety," Doctor Joliot said. "Since he was prematurely removed from his unit, the so-called acclimatization phase had not yet begun. We have had to instate this procedure at an increased pace to ensure his safe recovery."
"What does that mean?" Brantley grunted. "Are you saying he wasn't really ready?"
"Physically, your father is doing very well," the vixen said, "he was...full to term, in that respect by all means. Yet there are other factors to consider."
"You have to tell me," Brantley rumbled. "I don't know much about this stuff."
"Your father's recombinant has been...prepared in a sterile medium," the vixen said, "a closed environment where his exposure to foreign organisms has been carefully controlled to ensure his safety. Usually, when the time comes to remove the patient from the growth medium, we introduce a number of common microorganisms in a controlled manner."
"I'm not sure what that means," Brantley grumbled.
"I shall explain to you like I explained it to my daughter," the vixen said.
The wolf was surprised. He wouldn't have thought the cool-mannered woman was actually a mother, too.
"Go on. If that helps."
"The world is a dirty place," the vixen stated, "our bodies are incredibly filthy. Billions of microbes dwell on our fur, our skin, inside our bodies. Most of them are harmless, and our bodies pay no heed. Some of them are even beneficial, in a symbiotic relationship with us. They digest much of our food, example. Your father's recombinant needs these bacteria as well. The body needs them, and needs to be taught that they are not dangerous, or harmful. That is what we do. Introduce them in a controlled way. Teach the body to live with them."
"So you're deliberately...infecting him with stuff?"
"I would prefer to use the term 'colonization' for this purpose, but yes, we are making sure that this transition happens in a controlled fashion."
"How long does it take?"
"It depends on a few factors. So far, your father's recombinant is doing well."
"But I can't go to see him."
"Contact must be kept to a minimum while his immune system acclimates into life in the real world."
This place has nothing to do with reality, Brantley thought.
"So why you, Doctor?" he asked the next question that was bothering his mind.
"Yes?"
"Why is it you telling me all this?" Brantley pointed out. "You're the brain doctor, not the...not the Cordon guy who says he is in charge of the recombinants. Was he not available? Didn't want to talk to me? Or what?"
"Your father is equally my responsibility as well, Mister Kyle," Doctor Joliot replied. "And even more so now as the crucial moment of his awakening is imminent."
"When?" Brantley made the impatient question almost automatically.
"As soon as we are convinced that his physical condition is sufficient, we will take him off sedation and begin to assess his psychological and cognitive status. Physical therapy and other supportive measures will of course begin, too, so that his recovery will be as swift as possible."
"Therapy?" Brantley questioned.
"A recombination is an extremely traumatic event for any individual, Mister Kyle," the vixen said. "Especially a total recombination, as in your father's case. The combination of the neuropsychological and the biological elements into a new individual..."
Brantley's ears drooped.
"You're slipping into this weird crap again," he said, "can't you imagine I'm your daughter once more?"
The vixens' tall ears made a curious motion, but she did nod, eventually.
"A new body, and a new brain, Mister Kyle," he said. "And your father's personality in that brain, trying its best to rebuild itself..."
Brantley made a face.
"You definitely know how not to get someone's hopes too high," he said.
"I don't sell what we do here," Joliot said. "hence I do not have the luxury of endless optimism."
"Not even when dealing with the family of the patient?" Brantley proposed.
"Do you want the truth or not, Mister Kyle?" the vixen stated.
"Of course I want the truth," Brantley's tail snapped against the couch.
"In that case, let me remind you of what we spoke when your father first arrived," Doctor Joliot continued. "He is a very special case. His brain was irreversibly damaged in the accident. We...took that mind, that potentially very damaged mind, and...gave it a new body. We have seen a great deal of activity, even more than nominally so...the personality reasserting itself, so to speak. It is possible that his mind will be...retrieved, in this manner, but I cannot promise you anything."
Brantley frowned. The tension in ihs body made his neck veins pop out.
"So you're saying that instead of one dead vegetable of a father in a freezer, I might also get one very expensive freak of nature living vegetable of a father?"
"The scans so far are inconclusive of many things, since we cannot interview the patient, but the one thing we know for sure, based on our functional imaging is that your father's recombinant's brain is very much active, and in no way resembles that of someone in a coma or a persistent vegetative state."
"So that's a good thing then?" Brantley demanded. To him it did sound like there was perhaps something to it, no matter even if the fox wasn't about to confirm it for him.
Doctor Joliot pressed her nimble paws together, with her wrists resting against her lap.
"Your father's brain was seriously injured. We mapped the brain and infused its pattern into the recombinant brain. It is very, very plastic, Mister Kyle. It has a remarkable capability for creating new nerve pathways. We do hope that any damage from the accident, that the recombinant brain will compensate for it by rebuilding the connections. However, it is not an exact process, and there is not much we can do to control it at this point. The biology is still partially beyond our understanding."
"Yet you do it..." Brantley said, "experimenting on people like my father..."
"How else would we progress?" the vixen stated. "How else would we give people like your father even the slightest chance of recovery?"
"A slight chance..." Brantley said, "is there a number?"
"A number?"
"A chance," the wolf said. "A percentage. Odds?"
"I do not deal in odds, Mister Kyle," she said, "only in statistics, and in clinical evidence. And we are on new ground here, Mister Kyle. We don't know what to expect, not entirely."
"But it's a chance," Brantley said.
"Yes," said the Doctor. "It is."